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SharePoint pages - difference between Save as Draft, and Publish

Anonymous
2022-02-15T20:31:37+00:00

I have read (and always thought) that when I create a page in SharePoint Online, when I Save as Draft but do not Publish it, no one else can see the page. After I publish, they can. Subsequent changes are not seen by anyone until I Republish. That is what the MS Support page says:

Save as draft

When you save a page as a draft and don't publish it, any changes you've made during the current editing session are saved, and the page is checked in. The latest version of the page is in a draft state, and not visible to site users yet.

(underline added)

However, this is not my experience as I am just getting into creating pages on our SharePoint Online site. When I am editing a new page, it is saving automatically and no one can see the changes. BUT when I click Save as Draft, now everyone who has access to that site can see the page, even visitors who are outside the domain. I have not clicked Publish at all.

SO...

Question 1: What is the actual difference between Save as Draft and Publish?

OR

Question 2: is it possible that someone has disabled something on the site or on our domain, so that these two actions do the same thing? Perhaps some setting on our site makes this happen, and if so, perhaps we can change it back to the expected result. If so what is that setting?

On a side point:

Question 3: Whether this Save as Draft vs. Publish issue can be resolved or not, since it is automatically saving, why would I click Save as Draft? Or is there a way to disable Autosave also?

Thank you.

Microsoft 365 and Office | SharePoint | For business | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-02-16T01:28:05+00:00

    Hi WillBeeSEA,

    Thank you for querying in this forum.

    From your description, it seems that you are trying creating a page in SharePoint site, however, the others cannot see this page, but if you saved it as draft, the others and external users can see the page.

    May I know if my understand is right? If so, we have also tested it on our side, we created a new page in SharePoint site, it will not save page automatically, we can click Save as draft or click Publish the page directly, as shown below:

    So for your first question, as official article mentioned, when you click Save as draft, any changes you've made during the current editing session are saved, and the page is checked in. All the others which contains external users cannot see this page. And if you click Publish the page, the others can see the changes you made.

    For the second question, currently, as far as we know, there is no such setting to change behavior of Save as draft and Publish.

    For the third question, according to our test, the page will not be saved automatically.

    And for the situation you encountered, we assumed this issue may be related to your SharePoint site or tenant. To better understand your situation and narrow down this issue, could you provide the information below?

    1. May I know if all SharePoint sites have the same problem?
    2. May I know if the other colleagues have the same problem?
    3. May I know if the other SharePoint pages have the same problem?

    Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

    Best Regards,

    Sukie

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